Quote:
Originally Posted by fuddman
To me, calling the Lime Rock edition a marketing fraud or simply an exploitation for profit, first of all, misses the entire point of the car and, secondly, just isn't supported by the numbers.
At an average price per car of $75,000, the total sales from these 200 cars is going to be around $15,000,000. Total 2011 BMW sales was just under 92 Billion dollars. That means these 200 Limerock cars is probably going to represent about 0.00016 of their 2012 sales. A proverbial drop ( a very small drop) in the BMW bucket.
Do they stand to make a large profit? Not really. Remembering that instead of selling 200 Limerocks at an average cost of 75K, they would be selling 200 ordinary M3s probably at an average cost of 60k. Their increase in profit by selling 200 Limerocks instead of the 200 garden variety M3s is a measly $213,000.00. BMW profit margin for 2011 was 7.1%. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/bu...-for-2011.html)
There is nothing in the numbers related to these cars to support the conclusion of greed, fraud or exploitation. But, if it's not greed, then what's the motive behind this beast?
The answer, I think, is hidden in the press release. Where it says the car is meant to celebrate the relationship between BMW and Limerock park, what it really should say is: Skip Barber has a solid friendship with a person(s) in the BMW organization and the car is meant to memorialize that friendship. In other words, the car was born from two buddies getting together and having some fun . That's the way I look at it. |
I like your thinking, but then why charge $5,000 for individual colors that are simple base colors if its not about the money? Surely it doesn't cost much more to paint an orange car rather than a white one? Special order only with a deposit, I get that, pay extra for it, no. This model is special, but just in a marketing sense, it's not a special performance model that you would expect from a performance icon like the M3. I am tired of hearing about the cost of certification and emissions testing in the US being the reason we can't get models they get in other countries. The company is flush, hitting sales records every month. Won't suck up some losses for a halo car? You did for the Z8,
and look how it has been celebrated for 10years, why not for the M3?